A FILM premiere with a difference was organised last week in Keighley to mark the culmination of a project involving schoolchildren and pensioners.

Making Memories involved a crew of film students from Bradford following students from Holy Family School for a year.

The teenagers befriended older members of the Roman Catholic parishes in Keighley and Silsden by holding several activities and trips.

The resulting film was due to be screened for the first time at Keighley Picture House with the audience including many of those involved in the project.

The project was aimed at both recalling old memories in creating new ones. The project began in November last year with support from the Embrace Project at Catholic Care.

Michelle Vink and Damian Moore, both from Making Memories, spoke to year nine students about bringing different generations together to build long-term friendships.

The younger and older people met once a month for sessions based around topics such as church culture, traditional games and IT. They also went on trips together.

One of the trips was to watch the West Yorkshire Dance Academy’s performance of The Jolly Postman, whose cast included some of the students.

In October the Making Memories Roadshow, developed from Catholic Care’s Embrace Project, returned to Holy Family School to talk with 30 year 10 Health and Social Care students about younger and older generations exchanging their experiences.

A Catholic Care spokesman said: “They were very interactive with the presentation and asked lots of questions throughout!”

Making Memories started at Holy Family School in 2017 as a dementia-friendly project during the school’s annual PHSE week.

Embrace Project staff returned to the school during this year’s PHSE week to learn how far students have progressed in their friendship-building work with support from local organisations.

A spokesman said: “The year nine Making Memories pupils led the overall presentation with a script that included two older ladies who retold a magical story of their upbringing in India in the 1940s only to return to Keighley years later and find out in 2018, as part of Making Memories, that they had shared similar childhoods.”